So since you’re looking at redesigning the mechanics around upwell structures, I have one request which would make things much more viable:
Remove the DPS cap for capital ships.
Keep the DPS cap for subcaps, but allow a group to drop capitals to kill a structure faster. DPS minimums to pause the timer would be unaffected by this request.
Why?
Simple:
It would see a LOT more capitals on-grid, which in turn could lead to many more capital escalations in fleet fights
It would make players less likely to hang themselves with their own computer’s power cord during a structure bash
It would completely break the strategy of structure spamming. Astras and Rets are WAY too cheap for large groups, they can drop them far faster than their opponents can kill them. If you can blap a structure in 5 minutes with a couple dreads, the strategy becomes moot.
It forces an alliance in low/null to be ready to keep their capitals in a more balanced position or risk being out of position if their opponent drops caps and theirs aren’t in range
Pre-emptive answers to “why not”:
It’s capitals only, so in places like highsec where the newbie groups are, there’d be no change
The defensive side has the timers to allow them to coordinate a defense. They don’t NEED a DPS cap.
If the offensive side can bring overwhelming force to bear to chew down the structure “a lot” faster, they deserve to chew it down faster. They’ve committed a capital group to the endeavor, which is a strategic move that deserves to be rewarded.
Subcaps can still counter capitals. Quite easily in the right comps/quantities. Smaller groups aren’t completely neutered, just forced to fight harder or hire mercs.
Apparently people are also entitled to base their argument on at least partially wrong premise: Ever heard of capital stashes? I have dreads and carriers all over New Eden and can travel or JC to them within 20 minutes max.
Great. Move even more people into the biggest groups because EVE is not stale enough as it is.
I’m in the DRF. We killed a keepstar by stalingrading it with dreads while our main capital force was staged in an entirely different region. I know about capital stashes quite well. The fact remains that those capitals have to be held back. They can’t be pushed forward to the front to be used offensively, which would most definitely be something tempting to do when you’re evicting a large nullsov group.
Sorry but if you want to deploy your own infrastructure, you’d better be ready for the bigger kid to kick it down. Since you apparently misconstrued “hire mercs” for “join a bigger group” I’ll clarify. “Pay ISK to merc groups to help defend your structure”.
I’m 100% entirely open to this prospect. I suspect the “capital” element would need to remain however, in order to protect small highsec groups.
Remember though that when a titan DDs it’s immobilized. I recognize that when goons/PL decide to break out the heavy dildo and smack someone in the face with it, there’s not a whole lot anyone can do about it, but if the tactic becomes prevalent, you’ll see people start batphoning their friends. Sooner or later, you’ll have a full-blown capital escalation.
It’s not like Goons or PL would pass up the opportunity to blob on each other.
One of the biggest goals is to get more capitals on-grid. Especially out in null, where they’re everywhere.
Using a sweet enough carrot will tempt FCs to permit capitals to drop, which in turn allows enemy FCs to counter-drop, which escalates until someone starts killing capitals. That’s the big endgame here.
Right now, risk aversion and a complete lack of incentive keep capitals isolated to just fighting other players in ships. Which isn’t needed unless you’re trying to kill a keepstar.
The problem is that some FCs will not want to risk caps for anything smaller than a Fortizar unless they could practically drive-by DD it and that would be somewhat OP.
Absolutely true, and they are smart to be so - whelping your cap fleet for an Astra will not go over well with your membership. But dropping capitals will undoubtedly happen with higher frequency, which in turn provides potential for them to be attacked.
Remember that there’s a vulnerability timer. The defenders and attackers both know it, and both are capable of staging capital forces for it. A drive-by DD without an extremely heavy-handed capital fleet to support it would become a very expensive whelp. If they want to commit massive forces to a single objective, I’ll commit smaller forces to 2 objectives. I lose 1 objective, they lose 2. Their supercaps are all in one place, with jump fatigue.
Regardless, as I said, I’m 100% open to the idea of a “raised damage cap” for capitals. So long as it’s enough to really make someone want to drop 3-4 dreads or 5-7 carriers on the structure. I would think that a total kill-time of 5 minutes between the subcap and cap damage caps (how many caps can a damage cap cap if a damage cap could cap damage?) would be more than sufficient to dissuade someone dropping their entire super fleet.
Eh… a dread cycle is 5 mins. Making it go any faster won’t really save them any time, and they are more or less designed for that kind of work (pounding big things).
My goal is to see capitals on grid; supercaps would be the result of an escalation.
I start with 3-4 dreads, you drop a capital response on it (something overwhelming). One of the dreads lights a cyno and in jumps a counter-escalation.
Within the war we’re presently fighting, that would be an incredible godsend. We’ve a staging point with jump range on pretty much everything in the region. Being able to drop 3 dreads and a couple carriers on 10 different structures at once, with the ability to cyno in reinforcements to meet the demands of the response would be a godsend right now, as we’re approaching the mop-up stage where we just need to take out their citadels.
Granted there are vuln and reinforcement timers to contend with still, but the hard part is convincing 20 pilots to go waste their time killing a structure “because it needs killing”. It’s so mindlessly boring. Capitals would do the job faster, at the risk of being exposed to escalation.